To one of your father's ex-employee's, whose unjust firing was entirely your fault

"Oh God no! Please not Elena Fernandez!" you cry out. Of all the names you could have picked why did it have to be that twit?

Elena Fernandez was the daughter of one of your daddy's maids. Hispanic like her illegal immigrant of a mother she had a fiery temper and a disrespectful attitude toward her betters. The two of you had come to words several times; she didn't seem to appreciate the wages your daddy was generously paying her mother, even though her mother shouldn't have even been in the country. '**** wages' she'd called them.

Her mother's employment had been terminated abruptly when a gold bracelet went missing from your room. It had seemed obvious at the time that it was Ellie's mother since she'd been cleaning the room between the times you'd last seen it and noticed it missing. Unfortunately for them you found the bracelet a week after daddy fired her mother, kicking her out the door.

Your opinion at the time was that your father had been far too generous. Uncharacteristically so. Normally he was extremely tight-fisted about servant wages, and in this case he'd have been perfectly justified to deny them any severance wages whatsoever. It wasn't like they were Americans, after all. Instead, he gave the two a full week's pay of a hundred dollars.

When you'd found the bracelet you decided to do the noble thing and call them to assure them you'd found the expensive jewellry, maybe even to say something implying an apology. It wouldn't do for you to actually admit that you were wrong, but you reasoned that it would make them feel better to know that you no longer held them at fault for the bauble going missing.

One of the other servants eventually admitted to giving the departed duo a cell phone so they could call if needed. Perhaps it's unnecesary to say that your call wasn't well-received. Your attempt to assure them that all was well, generous as it was, was met with outright hostility.

"I'm sure the phone's dead by now," you re-assure yourself. It was over a month ago at least, and those Mexicans are such chatterboxes the battery wouldn't have lasted a week. Still...

"I've got to get out of her," you mutter, pushing down on the edge of the bucket. Your fingers slip from the edge, the oil making it extremely difficult to grip anything. A second attempt seems to budge you a little, giving you hope until your hands slip again.

Unlike the last slip your hands don't slip outside the bucket, they slip in, one between your legs and the other between your buttocks and the bucket. It isn't until you try to pull them out again that you realize they, and the rest of you, are well and truly wedged into the bucket.